Kettle screening...

[smizak]

Is frustrating. It's the only part of my process that I don't have nailed down. I've tried a couple of methods, a scrubby over the Auto-siphon after a whirlpool and settle period has worked the best, yet I still get mixed results depending on my hop amount/type. I bought and installed a weldless bulkhead but have failed to get it to work the way I want and not end up with soupy break and hop particles in my fermenter.

What works best for you guys? More specifically, what works best for both hop forms, pellet or whole?

 

[Walker]

I picked other, because I actually use both a bazooka screen AND a large hop sock.

I used to just use the screen and it was fine when I brewed with whole hops, but I brew mostly with pellets now and the hop sock I Have lets a good amount creep through... it clogs my screen and I have to constantly scrape it with my Big Spoon as I drain to the fermenter or I will lose the siphon.

 

[oldschool]

What type of chiller do you use? I use an immersion chiller for now. I only use pellet hops in the boil, mostly for wort retention issues, but i just throw them in. no bag, no screen, no...whatever. Who really cares if it goes in to your fermenter? You have yeast and protein that you don't care about. The hops are the first to settle out so if you want to harvest yeast then the hops will be at the bottom and they don't effect clarity or taste.

 

[Walker]

Is the chiller question directed at me? I use an IC, too I am using it in the opposite manner (I put the coil in cold water and pump wort through the coil).

 

[cheezydemon3]

A hop bag secured over the intake of your syphon works very well.

I put a large porous item in the hop bag to keep it from getting sucked into the syphon.

I bent a screen intended to keep food from going down the sink to put into mine.

I secure it with a rubber band soaked in no rinse.

 

[conpewter]

Doesn't exactly answer your question, but I use a false bottom with whole hops and it works great. I just stick to whole hops for everything. I grow my own hops so I didn't want to deal with both whole and pellet, plus I just like using whole hops, less processed.

 

[smizak]

Doesn't exactly answer your question, but I use a false bottom with whole hops and it works great. I just stick to whole hops for everything. I grow my own hops so I didn't want to deal with both whole and pellet, plus I just like using whole hops, less processed.

I'm a whole hop guy too, mostly because when I get them from Freshops, I know what year they were harvested for sure. I found a big, perforated pan cover at Target that would make a great false bottom.

 

[Walker]

Cool. If that doesn't work out for you, a screen works well with whole hops for me. It's just the sludge from pellets that causes me problems with the screen.

 

[Homercidal]

I have the same problems. I want to try making a fine mesh basket that I can hang in the kettle. When it comes time to drain the kettle, the hops stay in the mesh basket and out of my CFC. Then I can just rinse the basket out when I'm done.

I already have the SS mesh, just need to get some scrap SS sheet from work and cut and bend for the frame. I spent hours trying to decide how to hold it all together before I found out we have a spot welder here...

 

[smizak]

I have the same problems. I want to try making a fine mesh basket that I can hang in the kettle. When it comes time to drain the kettle, the hops stay in the mesh basket and out of my CFC. Then I can just rinse the basket out when I'm done.

I already have the SS mesh, just need to get some scrap SS sheet from work and cut and bend for the frame. I spent hours trying to decide how to hold it all together before I found out we have a spot welder here...

I'll need to find a spot welder as well. The Target brand splash screen looks very promising. Nice and perforated and totally round.

Softworks Splatter Screen

It's actually stainless as well. Which also makes it a ***** to cut to size. $19.99<<<<<<Blichman false bottoms.

 

[conpewter]

I've bought one of these to try out

http://www.barproducts.com/media/pizzascreens.html

10" is $2.34

 

[smizak]

I've bought one of these to try out

http://www.barproducts.com/media/pizzascreens.html

10" is $2.34

Neato. Aluminum too. Stainless is nice, until you need to cut or drill it.

 

[ajf]

Another satisfied whole hop and false bottom user.
If I use pellet hops, I add them in a 5g paint strainer bag, and still use an ounce or so of whole hops, which catches almost all the sludge that gets trough the paint strainer.

-a.

 

[smizak]

Another satisfied whole hop and false bottom user.
If I use pellet hops, I add them in a 5g paint strainer bag, and still use an ounce or so of whole hops, which catches almost all the sludge that gets trough the paint strainer.

-a.

Prolly the route I'll go.

How does it handle break material? I'm not as concerned with it getting in my fermenter, more concerned with it glopping up my filtration method. I used a stainless chore boy around the dip tube in my kettle for a N. English Brown and an Irish Red. Worked fairly well, albeit a little slow. I just brewed a Tripel this past Friday, and I barely got a trickle out of the ball valve. There was a ton of protein break in that beer,(maybe because of pilsener malt?) and it worked it way through the scrubby and totally clogged it up before I even tried draining.

 

[ajf]

I use a CFC, so the cold break forms in the chiller and ends up in the fermenter. The hot break gets trapped by the hop bed, and very little gets through. I don't use any sort of filter on the spigot. The hops do the filtering for me, and I've never had any problems draining.

-a.

 

[smizak]

I'll chock that up to being a weird batch. I've never seen protein break like that. It was an inch thick on top of the wort just before it hit boiling, then a massive bed of it in the bottom of the pot after chilling. The scrubby was heavy with it when I pulled it out, totally coated in cold break. Hyperactive whirlfloc or something.

 

[Homercidal]

I use the mesh screens for cooking currently. They do a good job of straining, but clog up pretty easy. Currently I use a coarser cone shaped strainer first, and let it run through a finer round mesh. But it's more Hands-On, than I want it to be.

 

[jpsloan]

I use a CFC, so the cold break forms in the chiller and ends up in the fermenter. The hot break gets trapped by the hop bed, and very little gets through. I don't use any sort of filter on the spigot. The hops do the filtering for me, and I've never had any problems draining.

-a.

Do you use pellet hops or whole? The one time I tried whole hops without a bag in my keggle, they ended up plugging up the CFC, and I had to use an autosiphon (the temperature completely trashed the autosiphon, to boot). I hear that pellet hops tend to sit down in the dead space and not cause issues with CFC's, but I'm reluctant to try it.

 

[Boerderij_Kabouter]

For my system I use hop sacks and a whirlpool. I am about to try a HopBlocker from Blichmann. I am interested in that design.

 

[smizak]

For my system I use hop sacks and a whirlpool. I am about to try a HopBlocker from Blichmann. I am interested in that design.

I still can't wrap my head around that thing. I think I need to see one for real before I can know how it works, I can't find any photos that show how it even mates with a diptube/bulkhead or whatever.

 

[ajf]

Do you use pellet hops or whole? The one time I tried whole hops without a bag in my keggle, they ended up plugging up the CFC, and I had to use an autosiphon (the temperature completely trashed the autosiphon, to boot). I hear that pellet hops tend to sit down in the dead space and not cause issues with CFC's, but I'm reluctant to try it.

See my previous post.

-a.

 

[jpsloan]

See my previous post.

-a.

That's what I get for scrolling too fast!

Seems I'm sticking with whole hops in muslin bags for the time being.

 

[eggbeater59]

i voted other, because i built the hop taco! it's a hop stopper knock-off. it's worked great so far with leaf hops, but it's getting its first all pellet run this weekend. only complaint is that it drains slow... like 2x as long as siphoning out took.

 

[jpc]

For my system I use hop sacks and a whirlpool. I am about to try a HopBlocker from Blichmann. I am interested in that design.

Ditto on that. I finally found a use for the $100 gift certificate to Northern Brewer that I received at Christmas last year. If I'm not stuck at work all weekend, I'm going to give it a try.

 

[jpc]

I still can't wrap my head around that thing. I think I need to see one for real before I can know how it works, I can't find any photos that show how it even mates with a diptube/bulkhead or whatever.

I just received mine yesterday, and did a test-fit in my kettle. It's pretty simple, actually.

There is a hole located in the unit that is the same diameter and located at the same height as the dip tube of a Blichmann boil pot. To get it in the kettle, I removed the dip tube, inserted it into the HopBlocker, and then reinserted the dip tube (which was then inside the HB).

I'm not sure how well it will work with non-Blichmann pots.